


like it was only yesterday

by TemporaryDysphoria



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Full Disclosure, Future Fic, M/M, Old Age, This is a fair amount of a whump, getting old, like it's fluffy but you'll cry, retired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22541788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TemporaryDysphoria/pseuds/TemporaryDysphoria
Summary: "It's going to rain today.""Is it, dear?""Mmm."Lupin and Jigen and the inevitable and unstoppable march of time.
Relationships: Jigen Daisuke/Arsène Lupin III
Comments: 27
Kudos: 127





	like it was only yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still decompressing via whump fics.

“It’s going to rain today.” Jigen says, eyes trained on his barometer on the porch.

“Is it, dear?”

“Mmm” Jigen hums happily. He has fertiliser in his hand. He’ll be making his way down to the veggie garden to spread it before the inevitable downpour.

Lupin smiles over his coffee. Who would have thought they’d make it this far? Jigen is still learning to read his barometer correctly – he gets it right about half the time, but he enjoys it, and his eyes light up when his prediction is correct.

If you’d asked Lupin five years ago, where he say himself in five years’ time, retired wouldn’t have even been on the radar. Funny though, how life hands you certain cards. Cards you have no choice but to take.

“You still haven’t finished that coffee.”

Jigen stomps up the steps, lopsided. Always lopsided these days, since he took that shotgun shell to the leg that shattered his kneecap. Lupin thinks it suits him. He’s always been a little lopsided – his Jigen.

Lopsided hat. Lopsided smile. Cigarette always hanging from one side of his mouth.

“You know what I like most about being retired?” Lupin asks, swanning into Jigen’s space without so much as a preamble.

His gunman smells like earth, like the dirt he’d just been digging in. It’s such a domestic change from the blood and violence that it still chokes Lupin up to think about it sometimes.

“What?” Jigen asks, head tilted to the side. Lopsided.

Lupin presses their lips together in lieu of an answer. Jigen makes a happy hum into his mouth and the whole thing is so fucking domestic that Lupin feels like his heart might burst.

“I can do that whenever I want,” he says softly, placing another peck on those thin lips before he goes back for his lukewarm coffee, finishing it with a gulp.

Jigen grins at him, and there’s something softer about too now. Something more open in the way he looks at Lupin, in the way he lets his gaze and his touches linger.

They’re not racing against the clock anymore.

“Hey Jigen, do you remember the first time we met?”

Jigen runs a hand through Lupins short hair affectionately. Lupin threads their fingers together and Jigen kisses his forehead, then his nose, then finally his mouth once more. He smiles.

“Like it was only yesterday.”

* * *

“It’s going to rain today.” Jigen says, a tiny shovel in his hand.

“Is it, dear?”

“Mmm,” Jigen hums, tipping his hate back to look at the sky.

Two years on, and he’s almost spot on with his predictions now. He doesn’t walk as lopsided anymore since he relented and started using a walking cane.

He hates it. It makes him feel old. And Lupin hates to see him upset and angry, but he hates to see him without mobility more, so he’d put his foot down. It had been a tense showdown in the doctor’s office, and Jigen hadn’t spoken to him for nearly three days, but it was worth it.

“How are your roses going?” Lupin asks, one hand holding a coffee mug, the other in his pocket. Jigen looks up at him from his position on his knees.

“They’re spikey. Going well.” He says absently, bending back down to pick at more weeds. “I saw a ladybug before, pretty red one.”

Lupin likes to watch his gunman work. The garden has come along in leaps and bounds since they’ve been retired, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jigen look happier than when he comes in after hours of pottering around.

“Do you want to go out for brunch today?” Lupin asks, inspecting a rose that reminds him of a jacket he used to wear.

“Sounds good.” Jigen says, and he goes to stand.

It’s a slow process these days, with the knee and all. Lupin will help him if he needs it but he won’t offer. His gunman is too proud and it hurts him to ask for help. So, Lupin compromises and just watches closely instead.

Once he’s mostly standing it’s quick. A swift stretch from the hips has him upright once more. He grins at Lupin but his smile falters. He reaches out for something to grab. Lupin steps in and takes the weight without complaint.

Jigen feels cool to touch, even after spending time in the sun. Lupin finds a pulse at his wrist out of habit. It’s there, fast and thready, pounding underneath skin.

“Sorry,” Jigen mumbles, disengaging his hands from Lupin’s shoulders and reaching for his cane, “Must’ve got up too fast.”

He grins at him again, and this time the smile doesn’t falter. The sight eases Lupin’s own heart, still beating a thumping staccato in his chest.

Lupin threads his fingers through Jigen’s free hand. “Take it easy old man, you’re not a spring chicken anymore.”

Jigen huffs and squeezes his fingers, “I’ve got a walking stick I can hit you with if you keep that ‘old man’ nonsense up.”

Lupin presses a kiss to Jigen’s cheek, feeling warm as the colour floods back into the skin there.

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

Jigen hums and loops his arm around Lupin’s shoulders, locking him in place by his side.

“Like it was only yesterday.”

* * *

“It’s going to rain today.” Jigen says from the porch, adjusting his glasses to see the numbers on his barometer better.

“Is it, dear?” Lupin already knows it is, because he’s got arthritis in his knees now and it warns him – as accurate as any barometer.

“Mmm,” Jigen hums, and he wanders back inside to make his own morning coffee.

He stops on the way, leans down to give Lupin a quick kiss. They’re slowing down – both of them now. Too many years spent too hard, too fast are all catching up to them now.

It had taken six years, but Lupin had finally dragged Jigen to the dentist to get that back infernal tooth pulled. They went to doctors for check-ups every few months. For all intents and purposes – they were regular old men.

As it should be. They deserved something regular after all this time, Lupin thought.

A crash of breaking china broke him out of his reverie. He could just make out Jigen’s swear words over the noise.

“Jigen?”

He was up and in the kitchen in a flash, arthritis forgotten, mentally preparing for the worst. Fortunately, what actually awaited him wasn’t quite so bad.

A mug was in shattered pieces on the floor, next to Jigen’s feet. The gunman was glaring at the offending object like he wanted it to burst into flames. He hadn’t noticed Lupin, and when he finally looked up, the glare was directed at him too.

“I’m fine.” He snaps, brusque, abrupt.

He reaches up above him for the dustpan and that’s when Lupin sees his hands shaking.

“Hey, hey, I’ll get it.”

Jigen grumbles, unwilling to give up the tool and Lupin could _feel_ the jitters through the brush that he had a hold of.

“I’ll get it,” he said gently, “I’ve got better knees than you. You sit down and I’ll make you a coffee – I need another one anyway.”

Jigen grumbled again and Lupin knew he’d be mad. He was scraping the last of the porcelain into the bin when his gunman finally spoke.

“M’gettin’ useless. Old and useless.”

“Hey,” Lupin sat, and squeezed his chair as close to Jigen as he could, “You’re not useless.

Jigen holds up a shaking hand between them, and when Lupin looks closely, he can see water filling up the edges of his gunman’s eyes, just threatening to try and break free.

“I used to be able to hit any target I wanted with these. Now look at them.”

Lupin folds the hand into two of his own, pressing a soft kiss to the knuckles.

“You don’t need to hit targets anymore Jigen. It’s fine. _We’re fine._ ”

Lupin does wonder in the very back of his mind sometimes if they are fine. He remembers the doctor, looking at charts, looking at the two of them over his glasses as he mutters something about alcohol related early dementia.

Surely not – Lupin thinks. That’s why they gave it up – both of them. Most days, it doesn’t even cross his mind. Until days like today, when the love of his life is so angry, so frustrated with himself that it nearly drives him to tears because he can’t do things like he used to. That’s when those terrifying words creep up from the very back of his subconscious.

“Hey Jigen,” he says, and the gunman looks at him. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

A small smile stretches across the gunman’s lips. It doesn’t remove the tears, but Lupin isn’t a young man any more who thinks that words and kisses can erase all pain. A smile is a good start though.

“Like it was only yesterday.”

* * *

Lupin wakes up to an awful pain in his knees.

“It’s going to rain today dear.” He mumbles into Jigen’s neck, making his gunman chuckle.

“I’ll need to repot those tomatoes then.” Jigen says, still half asleep as he pulls Lupin close.

It’s cozy, and nice, and warm, and – hang on.

“Didn’t you repot the tomatoes on Monday?”

“Hmmm?” Jigen thinks for a moment, before dropping his head back down. “You might be right. I must have been thinking about the pumpkin seedlings.”

Jigen’s voice was low and scratchy against Lupin’s ear. The kind of deep voice that made him feel safe, and secure, and –

“Jigen…”

Jigen squeezes his hand in response. For all the warmth of a moment ago, Lupin was feeling as cold as ice now.

“Jigen, it’s not pumpkin season.”

From the way they were lying, Lupin couldn’t see Jigen’s face. He could feel the gunman shift though – could feel the moment his breath hitched – could feel when the tears started to hit the side of his neck. He rolled over in his gunman’s arms, ignoring the ache of protest from his knees.

“Jigen…”

“I can’t remember, Lupin.” Jigen chokes down a sob that was threatening to escape. “I can’t fucking remember. Why can’t I fucking remember?”

“Shh, shh,” Lupin hushed, trying to kiss away the tears, even as he was breaking apart inside himself, “It’s fine.”

“It’s _not_ fine.”

“We can work through this.”

“Work through _what?_ How can we work through what I can’t remember? How can we…”

The rest of Jigen’s sentence trails off into a broken sob. Lupin holds him tightly but he had no answers either. He ran a hand as soothingly as he could through salt and pepper hair and tried to be strong for the both of them.

He was thinking hard, sifting through the information he’d been given to find something, anything that would help.

“Hey Jigen,” he says softly, tilting his gunman’s head up to press a chaste kiss to his mouth. He tastes salty like the sea, like tears – and Lupin hates it when Jigen cries.

“Do you…” he starts hesitantly, suddenly unsure if this was the right time, or the right thing to say. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

Something flashes behind Jigen’s eyes. Pain, anger, frustration, then finally, recognition. Fresh tears leak down his cheeks into his beard as he clears his throat.

“Yes,” he says, tucking his chin into Lupin’s shoulder, gripping him tightly like a vice. “Like it was only yesterday.”


End file.
